New Member

Well, not the EXACT same, but very similar.
Using a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop, with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400, Intel 945GM chipset (Centrino Duo). I can adjust my brightness from a fresh boot, but somewhere in the mix of using my computer, the screen goes dim and stays that way. I have my power options set to high performance (max brightness, don't dim, etc) when plugged in, but when I sleep/hibernate and unplug (carrying it to class) I can no longer adjust the brightness. VERY ANNOYING

If you've come up with anything since you posted, please let anyone know because this (along with a few other bugs) almost makes me want to go back to XP

New Member

I just had the exact same brightness problem and I couldn't find the solution on here...
For some reason the maximum brightness level gets set to a very low level in the bios.
Here's instructions on how to fix it:Link Removed - Invalid URL

In the Boot tab of the BIOS I only get a list of: Hard Disk, CD Rom, USB and some other devices, but nothing related to brightness, thus, this solution doesn't work for me, screen is about 75% bright, its bearable, but not for my taste, and I can't dim it all the way down using Power Saver plan or put it all the way up in High performance plan because the control won't show on Power Plan settings (not even in advanced power settings).

The brightness control worked when I had Vista installed.

I'm still looking for a solution :S

Edit: I'm going to download the chipset drivers from the Intel website and also the win7 nVidia drivers for the GeForce 8400M. I hope that resolves the issue

Edit #2: Finally, it worked, I installed the drivers for the nVidia GeForce 8400M and also the latest Chipset drivers from Intel 900 series. I'm so happy!

New Member

i have same problem on my hp probook 4515s: amd sempron si-42 ATI radeon HD 3200 win7 ultimate 64bit. Cant acceses bios and drivers are dowloaded hp:s site from win 7 drivers and still brightness stays very low. would realy like to get fix to this

New Member

Hello guys.
Have a t400 and just installed windows 7. Had exactly the same brightness (or lack) as discussed above. According to Microsoft then the brightness should be controllable under the Power option panel (sliding bar) but this was not visual when I tried it out the first time. In addition my hotkeys for brightness control sort of black out as well. Tried the advise with bios modification described by Phil's technical musings (Link Removed - Invalid URL) but in vain.
Just for the fun of it I went back to power options and click on the "change plan settings" for power saver, went in and altered the plugged in settings (adjust plan brightness etc) and low and behold, when i exited the brightness slide appeared at the bottom of the screen as described by Microsoft. In addition my hotkeys started to work.
Since then I've had no further problems.
If you have similar problems with the brightness then try tweaking the plan settings in power options and hopefully this will work for you as well.
Cheers

PS: I did install the new chipset and bios updates for my T400 prior to tweaking.

New Member

I had the same problem on my HP laptop. fn f7 and f8 were dead. Going to the ATI panel or the control panel, "brightness" were useless - just took me to the "power" controls, which don't give much control anyway. Windows 7 seems to have it's main goal to prevent people from having any control over their computers! (I've also found that I cannot choose which updates I want to install) Anyway, I found an answer that works for me. Hit the "Windows" key, between fn and alt keys, along with the X key, and a nice little window pops up with the control. After this, my f7 and f8 keys work again too.

Essential Member

Did your PC come pre-installed with windows 7 or did you install it?
If you installed it, you'll have to re-install the Toshiba PowerSaver application in order to make use of the fn keys to adjust the brightness.

New Member

hii
i am also having the same problem
i have windows 7 64 bit version
my laptop model is hp pavilion dv6 1152tx
i am unable to control the brightness with the fn key
as well as from the power option
there is no slider to change the brightness...
plz help me..

New Member

Thanks so much for your post!! I've been looking for a solution for this problem for close to a year. I've tried all sorts of things including 15 emails back and fourth with HP "tech support" on this one issue. Nothing worked except what you have suggested . I was so happy to find this that I registered to this forum just so that I could thank you! You've made my day!

The only way I could get my brightness control back before I found this post was to reboot, very annoying. After a few days the controls would stop working again until I rebooted again. I like to leave my laptop on all the time with lots of stuff opened and put it to sleep when not in use. So rebooting sucked. This is much easier and I could probably live with this, but I wish there was a way that I could make it so the brightness controls would never disappear again. And maybe it is fixed for good, only time will tell. I'll try to remember to come back in a week or two to give an update.

Well-Known Member

Joel - I'm happy to hear the solution worked for you. I had the exact same issue, extremely frustrating. Searched through forums endlessly and tried a multitude of suggestions from hardware changes to installing programs/drivers etc. to no avail. Not even a reboot would work in my case. I also had tech support take me through a bunch of randoms... and rather than admit to being stumped had the nerve to suggest it must be due to some sort of virus. Actually ended up sorting it all out later while trying to fix a separate issue. Figured I might as well post to a few forums since such a huge nuisance actually has a pretty simple solution. Would save a lot of people a lot of time if more knew about it (including tech support LOL). Fixed mine about a month back and the problem hasn't resurfaced so hopefully it's the same for you

New Member

New Member

Joel - I'm happy to hear the solution worked for you. I had the exact same issue, extremely frustrating. Searched through forums endlessly and tried a multitude of suggestions from hardware changes to installing programs/drivers etc. to no avail. Not even a reboot would work in my case. I also had tech support take me through a bunch of randoms... and rather than admit to being stumped had the nerve to suggest it must be due to some sort of virus. Actually ended up sorting it all out later while trying to fix a separate issue. Figured I might as well post to a few forums since such a huge nuisance actually has a pretty simple solution. Would save a lot of people a lot of time if more knew about it (including tech support LOL). Fixed mine about a month back and the problem hasn't resurfaced so hopefully it's the same for you

New Member

I have done registration in this forum only to say Many Thanks for jtpice9!!!! You have an answer for a problem that I doubt there's any idea or solution anywhere in the whole web! even the official tech support of NVIDIA, HP or Windows 7!